of medicine at Leiden; in his inaugural discourse, De commendando Hippocratis studio, he recommended to his pupils that great physician as their model. In 1709 he became professor of botany and medicine, and in that capacity he did good service, not only to his own university, but also to botanical science, by his improvements and additions to the botanic garden of Leiden, and by the publication of numerous works descriptive of new species of plants. In 1714, when he was appointed rector of the university, he succeeded Govert Bidloo (1649–1713) in the chair of practical medicine, and in this capacity he had the merit of introducing the modern system of clinical instruction. Four years later he was appointed also to the chair of chemistry. In 1728 he was elected into the French Academy of Sciences, and two years later into the Royal Society of London. In 1729 declining health obliged him to resign the chairs of chemistry and botany; and he died, after a lingering and painful illness, on the 23rd of September 1738 at Leiden. His genius so raised the fame of the university of Leiden, especially as a school of medicine, that it became a resort of strangers from every part of Europe. All the princes of Europe sent him disciples, who found in this skilful professor not only an indefatigable teacher, but an affectionate guardian. When Peter the Great went to Holland in 1715, to instruct himself in maritime affairs, he also took lessons from Boerhaave. His reputation was not confined to Europe; a Chinese mandarin wrote him a letter directed “To the illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe,” and it reached him in due course.
His principal works are—Institutiones medicae (Leiden, 1708); Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis (Leiden, 1709), on which his pupil and assistant, Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772) published a commentary in 5 vols.; and Elementa chemiae (Paris, 1724).
BOETHUS, a sculptor of the Hellenistic age, a native of Carthage (or possibly Chalcedon). His date cannot be accurately fixed, but was probably the 2nd century B.C. He was noted for his representations of children, in dealing with whom earlier Greek art had not been very successful; and especially for a group representing a boy struggling with a goose, of which several copies survive in museums.
BOETIUS (or Boethius), ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS (c. A.D. 480–524), Roman philosopher and statesman, described by Gibbon as “the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman.” The historians of the day give us but imperfect records or make unsatisfactory allusions. Later chroniclers indulged in the fictitious and the marvellous, and it is almost exclusively from his own books that trustworthy information can be obtained. There is considerable diversity among authorities as to his name. One editor of his De Consolatione, Bertius, thinks that he bore the praenomen of Flavius, but there is no authority for this supposition. His father was Flavius Manlius Boetius, and it is probable that the Flavius Boetius, the praetorian prefect who was put to death in A.D. 455 by order of Valentinian III., was his grandfather, but these facts do not prove that he also had the praenomen of Flavius. Many of the earlier editions inserted the name of Torquatus, but it is not found in any of the best manuscripts. The last name is commonly written Boethius, from the idea that it is connected with the Greek βοηθος; but the best manuscripts agree in reading Boetius.
His boyhood was spent in Rome during the reign of Odoacer. We know nothing of his early years. A passage in a treatise falsely ascribed to him (De Disciplina Scholarium) and a misinterpretation of a passage in Cassiodorus led early scholars to suppose that he spent some eighteen years in Athens pursuing his studies, but there is no foundation for this opinion. His father, consul in 487, seems to have died soon after; for Boetius states that, when he was bereaved of his parent, men of the highest rank took him under their charge (De Con. lib. ii. c. 3), especially the senator Q. Aur. Memmius Symmachus, whose daughter Rusticiana he married. By her he had two sons, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius and Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus. He became a favourite with Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, who ruled in Rome from 500, and was one of his intimate friends. Boetius was consul in 510, and his sons, while still young, held the same honour together (522). Boetius regarded it as the height of his good fortune when he witnessed his two sons, consuls at the same time, convoyed from their home to the senate-house amid the enthusiasm of the masses. On that day, he tells us, while his sons occupied the curule chairs in the senate-house, he himself had the honour of pronouncing a panegyric on the monarch. But his good fortune did not last, and he attributes the calamities that came upon him to the ill-will which his bold maintenance of justice had caused, and to his opposition to every oppressive measure. Of this he mentions particular cases. A famine had begun to rage. The prefect of the praetorium was determined to satisfy the soldiers, regardless altogether of the feelings of the provincials. He accordingly issued an edict for a coemptio, that is, an order compelling the provincials to sell their corn to the government, whether they would or not. This edict would have utterly ruined Campania. Boetius interfered. The case was brought before the king, and Boetius succeeded in averting the coemptio from the Campanians. And he gives as a crowning instance that he exposed himself to the hatred of the informer Cyprianus by preventing the punishment of Albinus, a man of consular rank. He mentions in another place that when at Verona the king was anxious to transfer the accusation of treason brought against Albinus to the whole senate, he defended the senate at great risk. In consequence of the ill-will that Boetius had thus roused, he was accused of treason towards the end of the reign of Theodoric. The charges were that he had conspired against the king, that he was anxious to maintain the integrity of the senate, and to restore Rome to liberty, and that for this purpose he had written to the emperor Justin. Justin had, no doubt, special reasons for wishing to see an end to the reign of Theodoric. Justin was orthodox, Theodoric was an Arian. The orthodox subjects of Theodoric were suspicious of their ruler; and many would gladly have joined in a plot to displace him. The knowledge of this fact may have rendered Theodoric suspicious. But Boetius denied the accusation in unequivocal terms. He did indeed wish the integrity of the senate. He would fain have desired liberty, but all hope of it was gone. The letters addressed by him to Justin were forgeries, and he had not been guilty of any conspiracy. Notwithstanding his innocence he was condemned and sent to Ticinum (Pavia) where he was thrown into prison. It was during his confinement in this prison that he wrote his famous work De Consolatione Philosophiae. His goods were confiscated, and after an imprisonment of considerable duration he was put to death in 524. Procopius relates that Theodoric soon repented of his cruel deed, and that his death, which took place soon after, was hastened by remorse for the crime he had committed against his great counsellor.
Two or three centuries after the death of Boetius writers began to view his death as a martyrdom. Several Christian books were ascribed to him, and there was one especially on the Trinity (see below) which was regarded as proof that he had taken an active part against the heresy of Theodoric. It was therefore for his orthodoxy that Boetius was put to death. And these writers delight to paint with minuteness the horrible tortures to which he was exposed and the marvellous actions which the saint performed at his death. He was locally regarded as a saint, but he was not canonized. The brick tower in Pavia in which he was confined was, and still is, an object of reverence to the country people. Finally, in the year 996, Otho III. ordered the bones of Boetius to be taken out of the place in which they had lain hid, and to be placed in the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro within a splendid tomb, for which Gerbert, afterwards Pope Silvester II., wrote an inscription. Thence they were subsequently removed to a tomb beneath the high altar of the cathedral. It should be mentioned also that some have given him a decidedly Christian wife, of the name of Elpis, who wrote hymns, two of which are still extant (Daniel, Thes. Hymn. i. p. 156). This is a pure supposition inconsistent with chronology, and based only on a misinterpretation of a passage in the De Consolatione.
